CHAPTER 163: HOW IN ALL HELL...? *

As far as Kaya was concerned, how long they had known/hated each other seemed to have very little to do with how much one could dislike another person.

Also, she really disliked how this snobby girl, who started this whole thing by the way, was now acting like the reasonable one.

’Hold on,’ Kaya thought then and looked away from Aylin’s perfect face to Caius’s.

Caius’s expression looked very natural. He looked the same as everyone else in the Cafeteria looked; Like he wasn’t in on what was happening but was interested in how it turned out still.

But Kaya felt she saw through that look. He had something to do with this. Was this what he meant by ’handling it’?

Kaya looked back at Aylin’s face and stood to her feet, her expression was unreadable until she let out a sigh and took the hand Aylin held out.

"Fine," she said.

As they shook hands once, Kaya never lost her guard. She was ready for any moment when this could have all turned out to be a trick and she’d get attacked.

She wasn’t the only one who waited for such a turn. Aylin’s gal-pals who hadn’t known she had planned on doing this waited for that moment when this moment of amicability would become one of combat.

But it never happened.

When her and Kaya’s hands separated, Aylin seemed only too happy to no longer be in such direct contact with the half-elf’s skin but she truly didn’t appear to have an ulterior motive. She gave one nod and then she looked at the faces of the others at the table.

She spent barely a second on each of Delia and Eloise’s faces with their expressions of suspicion and was soon looking at Caius who, despite keeping the same expression as the majority of those in the Cafeteria, had a knowing twinkle in his eyes which Aylin took as confirmation that he was pleased with what she had just done.

She smiled lightly at the only reaction she cared about following this whole ruse of ’peace-making’. With that, she turned her face away, raised her chin with that imperious aura of nobility exuding from her as she and her gal pals walked over to the table they usually occupied.

Caius smiled to himself. Aylin’s proposal for peace was obviously very surface-level and she had barely if at all let go of her dislike of what the girls at Caius’s table meant for her wish for exclusivity. Still, it was progress and maybe the first step in the right direction.

The rest of breakfast, Kaya noticed their table truly didn’t get any pointed glare from Aylin. She didn’t direct her icy chills at them and didn’t appear to be interested in threatening them with an icy attack. For all intents and purposes, Aylin Khione seemed to be truly serious about keeping the ’peace’ she had just made and Kaya wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

She believed there are just some people you are not supposed to make peace with. That there are some people you should go the rest of your school year disliking and just waiting for them to slip up so you can pommel them.

She had been planning on getting Professor Kragsten to sanction a duel between her and Aylin so she could get to do just that and she hated that the Icy bitch had now done something to take away some of the edge that would have made beating her ass so much more satisfying.

Of course, considering how they were all apparently going to be paired against each other in the weeks to come, Kaya still had hope of getting that duel and, should it happen, she would go at it as hard as she possibly could.

’Peace’ be damned!

That smug cunt had been asking to be smacked around for weeks now.

But putting that aside, Kaya understood why Aylin had come to ask for peace; It was for no other reason than Caius somehow getting her to temper her stupidity. That was all good and all, but the fact that Aylin was so against her and Eloise had been what made Kaya feel relaxed that the snotty Ice Mage would never get pulled into their circle.

She didn’t like how this felt like the first step to making the assimilation possible. She dreaded the day she would walk through the corridors of Lochxen with Aylin Khione mere feet away trying her best to hog the entirety of Caius’s attention.

Kaya wasn’t even a particularly jealous person, she just really did not like Aylin’s perfect face and that crazy look that was always in those Icy blue eyes of hers.

Eventually, she decided Caius had been the reason for the change in Aylin’s attitude and she wanted to know what he did to inspire the change.

-

-

•••

"Mmm."

The sound left both Kaya and Caius’s mouths simultaneously in deep moans that were muffled by their lips pressed together.

Caius had Kaya’s back pressed against the vine-covered door of the closet that had become their very private spot in the academy but hadn’t gotten any use for more than a week now. It seemed like such an oversight.

The first two classes of the day had blown past so easily that Kaya wasn’t sure she had attended. The ample amounts of notes she had taken and were now stashed away in her storage ring were the most evidence that she had to show she had learned something today. Her mind had been very engrossed in Caius’s presence beside her.

It was not a new thing for them to sit together. Especially since Delia had joined their circle and became a somewhat permanent seating partner for Eloise.

Today, the two classes she and Caius had spent sitting side by side seemed different though. Kaya couldn’t help the urge that was swelling within her throughout. She had questions about what had caused Aylin’s turn to ’peace’ and despite how much of a simple single-sentence question that would have been, her lips hadn’t been able to form the words.

She just tried not to moan too loudly when Caius’s hand touched any part of her body. Her back, her thighs, or even her hand whenever it didn’t impact her note-taking.

When the second period had been rolling to an end, Kaya’s mind seemed to only then remember how long it had been since she and Caius had been ’together’. Their last time had gotten interrupted and hadn’t even afforded them a true session together. It had ended with her barely satisfied and she and Caius simply hadn’t done anything about it since then.

Well, that had to change, Kaya decided.

She put the topic of Aylin aside for the moment now that she and Caius were here. Now that his body was pressed against hers as they swapped saliva.

She was sure Eloise hadn’t followed them together as had been the case the last time she and Caius had snuck away to this Closet to spend time together but had been even more alert for any possible follower that would interrupt her from ravishing Caius as her body had been aching to do for weeks.

She conjured vines with her nature Magic to create a bonding net against the door and keep it sealed so it couldn’t be pulled open from the outside and it also served as a cushioning to make her contact with the door—which she would have hardly been bothered by anyway due to how good she was feeling—into something she was actively leaning against as she pulled Caius’s jacket to keep his current closeness with her body.

Caius liked their closeness as well.

How in all hell had he kept from doing this for weeks now?

How had he ignored one of the few people he had in Lochxen that he could truly be himself with? Vampire and all.

He had to correct that.

He had to ensure he got to enjoy this eagerness of hers more often and the steps to making that change started with this moment.

He smiled against her lips as he grabbed her thighs and pulled one of her legs off the ground only for Kaya to take that as an invitation to wrap that leg around his waist and used a vine to secure it there.